Month: April 2016

“Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to get through this thing called… Life.”

Prince, Let’s Go Crazy (1984)

Life After Death

I had a terrible weekend. Didn’t everyone? It’s not all bad, though. There are some lovely write-ups around the web, so won’t repeat what’s already been said. How many times can one say “genius” before it gets old?

What’s Going On?

Great artists are fearless. Prince wandered through the same politically-aware, sexually-charged waters that the great Marvin Gaye did a generation before.

Stories will surface, like Questlove?’s crushing-but-hilarious tale:

Purple Haze

Maybe Prince was important to me because he allowed me to dial-in to Hendrix, re-connecting rock music to my identity. I couldn’t believe it to see him in Purple Rain; my hero re-incarnate, reborn, resplendent. Black cultural production is nothing if not constant innovation and a breaking with the old, although there may be darker reasons for such creative fury.

Diggin’ In The Crates

For the eagle-eyed, nuggets like this will turn up alongside, perhaps, the vault of unreleased music he is rumoured to have in the basement at Paisley Park. Here’s a wonderful interview from 1985. I love it.

Mostly though, I’m going to dance my arse off and party like it’s 1999. Thanks for the music, brother.

I felt a right mardy bastard filling in the feedback form after the show – after all, everybody had worked so wonderfully hard, bless them! The fizzing volunteer who’d asked me to do the always-boring paperwork was visibly deflated after talking to me, making me feel a killer of tiny, gorgeous creatures. My review was unsparing – but she did ask.

What’s The Issue, Buzzkill?

Well, let me tell you the issue. This year’s theme was climate change, but what kind of host throws a party and fails to invite it’s most important guests? Bar the inclusion of Lemn Sissay as Magical Negro, both panels and audience were overwhelmingly light, bright and damn-near white.

There Was Not A Single Black Woman Delegate In Attendance At The Entire Event

Need I say more? Not one. I find it astonishing that one can organise an event tackling issues of sustainability and climate change, but those who make up the majority of the planet’s population – the dreaded “people of colour” – are not represented in significant numbers – or in any numbers at all. Did they think nobody would notice? How can an event like that be relevant?

FutureEverything As Technological Colonialism

Technology conferences are displays of white European power and as such, serve their constituents flawlessly. Those constituents are white people. The panels are white people. The event was full of white people talking to other white people about the rest-of-the-world-as-object. We’ve seen this story before.

Diversity: Eat Your Greens

the hush following @lemnsissay’s plea for diversity at #futr16 was like the awkward silence of an outlaw walking into a bar in a western…

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

The panels.

For ***** sake. Really?

Not Your Magical Negro

I’m tired. I no longer want to be included. I’m not here to make up the numbers. I don’t want to turn up at opportune moment: a “Magical Negro”, like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, designed to help white people find their moral conscience, only to disappear again at the end, usually through design or death.

To my friends at FutureEverything, I say: “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s cool.” You’re not any better or worse than any other technology company, festival or media platform in the space. You all perform abysmally – but it’s all good. I’m still that guy you can let onto at a party. I’m still the one-Black-friend you know. Eeeveryone knows me. You’re not like those other white people, who only know that one Black guy – John, I think his name is – the cleaner. Or is he security? It’s so easy to get these things mixed up! Modern life, eh?

White people mostly hang out with white people, and only know other white people. My god, there’s even a documentary that talks about this in brilliant detail called (you guessed it!) White People:

I don’t do funny speeches, won’t do a star turn to exit stage left and leave everybody with a warm, fuzzy feeling. What if you’re about to organise a tech event in 2017 but feel really bad after reading this rant? I have the answer.

The government has thrown public services to the dogs. Adult education – so key, so vital – has been cut to the bone. This is the scenery. Is it possible to rock up in Moss Side with a laptop and big ideas and expect it to run smoothly? Is it?

What is the role of a computer science lab in a community where there is no scientific base at all?

When I first realised the anti-science whispering that proliferates on social media is taken seriously by many, I bristled – but who should take a bullet? Not ordinary people, struggling to make sense of the world while on the run between benefit sanctions and food banks. I have asked:

How does a community that had really been the object of scientific and medical scrutiny for generations — with really negative outcomes — come to see science and technology as a positive thing, or something that can be used for self-knowledge and liberation?

“I had a terrible education and, to be honest, I’ve learned more from Facebook than I did at school,” said one brother last night.